Streetwise

One Hardworking Bull

We know only too well the debt we owe to central bank money-printing.

As achievements go, record prices are no longer anything to brag about. The summit of high valuations is crowded these days with assets from Manhattan penthouses to Midwestern cattle, all Sherpa-ed there by money-printing global central banks. In India, even onions are becoming so expensive that politicians are pleading with people to eat fewer of them to bring prices down. So the U.S. stock market has had to impress folks with effort instead.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index last week eked out more record highs, but it...